22 February 2025: What ang bao did you get?

I’m doing a big catch-up today trying to wrap my head around all the non-death penalty news that happened this week. 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 #help

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To all of you who showed up at Hong Lim Park on Wednesday night or tuned in to the livestream, thank you. Pannir is alive today and that’s no small thing. But the fight is far from over.

Two executions are scheduled for next week. And even Pannir’s stay, while momentous, isn’t a complete victory. What he won in court was permission to file a post-appeal application. The judge made the decision on these grounds:

Pannir has an ongoing complaint with the Law Society against his former lawyer.
There’s a pending constitutional challenge against presumption clauses contained in the Misuse of Drugs Act, and this challenge is relevant to Pannir’s conviction.

Pannir has a rather short timeframe to file his post-appeal application and then we’ll have to see how things develop in court. There are no guarantees. If we want to end state executions, the quickest way would be for the government to implement an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty. The Transformative Justice Collective has a petition calling for this, which you can sign here.

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I’ve just looked up what I’m getting out of Budget 2025 (using this nifty tool from CNA) and it looks like I’ll be going to the ActiveSG gym more often and might go catch a show or two in the theatre. There are going to be CDC vouchers and SG60 vouchers which, as far as I can tell, are basically CDC vouchers with different branding? All tax residents will get tax rebates up to $200, and there’ll be credits for kids 12 and below (given to their parents) and families with three or more children.

This is a “feel good” Budget that’ll make people happy before the general election, CNA reports. But it’s not just about election-time ang baos, analysts say—this more generous budget could also be because the cost of living is really kicking our asses at the moment, so the government has to do something.

In one CNA commentary, the writer argues that “we must guard against the culture of entitlement from creeping in”, reminding us to keep in mind that SkillsFuture is about “future-proofing careers” while the CDC vouchers are about “a self-reliant future”. I have a different view of such vouchers and credits: if they’re repeatedly and consistently needed for people to live, then it’s an indication that more sustained, fundamental policies are required rather than hand-outs. People should be able to count on some things as entitlements rather than depend on government largesse. To that end, I’d like to once again direct everyone’s attention to research into the Minimum Income Standard in Singapore.

During his Budget 2025 speech, Lawrence Wong, the prime minister and finance minister, said that Singapore will be looking into the use of nuclear power on our tiny island country. No decision has been made yet, though, nor is there a timeline.

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Pritam Singh, the Leader of the Opposition, has been fined a total of $14,000—$7,000 for each charge of lying to Parliament. Workers’ Party supporters will be relieved to hear that he’s not going to lose his seat and will still be able to stand in the next election—someone is only disqualified if they’re sentenced to imprisonment of a year or more, or a fine of not less than $10,000 per charge.

Singh intends to appeal, so this isn’t the end of the matter. It’s not likely to really sway the election in any particular way; WP or PAP supporters aren’t going to be changing their opinions because of this. Personally I would very much like this whole saga to be over and done with because I think it’s a massive waste of resources that doesn’t benefit the people at all.

Sharing an old piece, written when the drama first kicked off:

An elastic commitment to accountability and checks on power

Many Singaporeans pointed to double standards in the Committee of Privileges probe into Raeesah Khan’s lie, compared to the reaction to the government’s admission that promises about the use of TraceTogether data were false. What sort of system of checks and balances do we have in Singapore?